Chapter Twelve

Las Vegas - San Diego

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"You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how." Gone with the Wind- Ellis

Las Vegas, The Strip, 9.48am - August 20th

Ellis

Jessie barrels rolls over the messy, un-made bed and flashes a hint of red lacy knickers under her pyjama shorts. 

It's as if she's determined to send me over the edge with her. And if we didn't have to be packed and downstairs within half an hour, I probably would. I know I would, though it scares me to my core. 

Before, the possibility of seeing Jessie in knickers or much less was just a never gonna happen keep on dreaming fantasy. A hopeful wish. 

Now, with the opportunity literally grabbing at my waistband, it's fingertips running through my hair, I realise that I never thought about what that would actually entail, which is crossing the line, once and for all and waving goodbye to the Ellis and Jessie of yesterday, the last ten years.

It's complicated and confusing not that you'd ever be able to tell with the way she's acting. It's as if we've woken up after any other night. Like it's always been this way. 

And the thought of having sex with Jessie, whose soft lips soon land on mine as she kicks her suitcase off the bed to the floor with wild abandon so she can pull me down onto it, is as terrifying as it is electrifying and all too real. And maybe I'm not ready yet.

Because there's the kissing of late last night and during it and in the hazy morning sunlight, and in the bathroom when I got out of the shower, and when I got a little carried away, kissed her neck as she packed and whispered words about how she seeing her in tiny shorts made me feel, and then there's this. It's a transition that might be too fast. 

If she could hear all the crazy thoughts wrapping themselves round my head she'd probably unwrap herself too and laugh at me, call me sensitive or a worrier. 

I know she'd tell me to deal with the consequences after, not during but then I wouldn't be me. Over thinking is as much a part of me as she is right now, her lips biting down on mine. Goading me into cementing a new part of our relationship. 

Something 'just' friends don't do. 

"I think we're going to be late to check out," I say, between stolen breaths. I wriggle side ways out from under her putting a pause on any potential proceedings. "And we've got to get out on the road before the traffic get's bad."

Lifting her knee up, she huffs but relents and lets me sit up. "You do worry a lot. I know you say I do, but you too do and at the very worst of moments." Her eyes widen and she tugs at the hem of her t-shirt. 

I rise to my feet and back into the TV unit and discarded suitcase. "Uh well, I know but we can..." I'm so tongue tied and caught up in picturing things I really shouldn't to speak coherently. "Uh... We can reconvene for another time? When we get to San Diego?"

"You make it sound so sexy," Jessie says laughing. She flops off the side of the bed so she rolls down onto the carpet, to continue stuffing socks and sweets and souvenirs into her backpack. 

Shrugging, I pick up her case and spread it out on the bed. I need to busy myself and mind with something horribly mundane. 

"So, are you ready to find out if we've got our ticket out of dodge or if we're just destined to spend the rest of our lives in Newton-Berry," she drawls, poking the laptop on the sofa with her feet. "I'm thinking we might as well get it over and done with."

"With what?"

"Our A-level results... The things we've been stressing over for the past two years? The key to a new life.. Possibly."

My memory jogs and then returns,and with it comes the dread and the impending feeling of betrayal that I know will wipe away any of my good intentions. Just like it'll wipe the smile off Jessie's face when she hears the words I can barely say to myself.

"Oh yeah, those," I say with a weak smile. "Shame the laptops run out of juice."

She groans loudly. "Guess we'll have to wait until we reach San Diego then," she says this just like in the movie we both love that has us detouring down to America's Finest City for a few days. 

"Guess so." I shuffle across the room and head for the bathroom. It's the only place I can catch a breathe and where Jessie won't be able to see me get so angry with myself that I almost pop a blood vessel. 

I hate myself for how this has spiralled. I meant to tell her the day I decided to apply for a University many more miles away than originally intended, for a course that could really kick start my dreams of working in Film and TV. 

I shouldn't have been so afraid or weak to tell her. Now, she's only going to hate me more. 

Turning on the taps to drown out my groans of frustration and so I can't hear her hum happily along to a song on the TV like her life couldn't be any sweeter, I slump down against the bath tub. 

It feels like the beginning of the end. 

There's not much time left before we have to head home and it changes all over again. When responsibility and the consequences of my hidden actions will be wide out in the open. 

I don't want to lose Jessie before I've even gotten half way there but it feels like it's inevitable. 

I wish life had a snooze button. For real. I want to stay happily wrapped up in Jessie who doesn't know any different and this trip and how easy it is to pretend like this is our life now: Eating junk food out the palm of each other's hand, cruising down highways and along the coast, with wind in our hair. 

Motels and hotels and double beds and long nights. No interruptions.

The responsibility of having to tell Jessie breaks me.

The thought of having to let go again kills me. 

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Moreno Valley, CA, Gas Station, 3.30pm - August 20th

"Skittles or Haribo?" Jessie asks, cocking her head to the side. Her tacky heart-shaped Lolita style sunglasses purchased a day ago slide down to the tip of her wonderfully freckled nose. "Or do you prefer something sweeter?"

We're in another gas station, in another city, still making our descent towards San Diego but we've had to stop again so she can use the toilet and fill up the cars glove compartment with snacks. 

I tell her it's her choice. It usually is. 

We end up with two plastic tubs of cotton candy the colour of raw meat and lollipops that turn her tongue Smurf blue. And then mine, when we make another unscheduled stop so I can check that there's enough water in the car. 

Jessie ambushes me and wraps her arms round my neck, pulling me in until she can kiss me hard and stain my mouth with hers. 

I'm not complaining. How can I? I'd be lying (more than I currently am) if I said I'd never imagined or dreamt up something like this. A kind of we're in the middle of nowhere and it's hot and we're both highly frustrated and now we're kissing up on the hood of a car. But also, it's kind of bittersweet. I haven't been able to shake the whole fact that in less than a few hours we'll get our results and I'll have to come clean. 

I might as well enjoy this while it lasts, however terrible that makes me. 

We don't say much once back in the car, unravelled from each other. Every so often I'll feel the warmth of her small hand rest over mine as I clutch the gear stick. She even manages to swing both her legs round so they fall across my lap, with her bare feet pointed up against the driver's door, towards the blue sky. 

Jessie multitasks her way through the towns of Menifee and Temecula, swapping out worn CDs for new ones, playlists for driving and for staring out at the open road, or each other as I catch her doing often. 

How I always hoped she might.

"Don't you ever just wish you could like, pause moments? Stop time, even for a milly willy second so you can really feel it before it passes by?" Jessie says, head nudged against the door. She looks so beautiful bathed in sunlight that I can hardly speak a word back. 

"Wait," I laugh heartily, stretching one arm out to brush her cheek. 

"Wait what?"

"What the hell is a 'milly willy second'? Is it a small penis..?"

She chuckles into her hand. "No! No! Hah. I don't know actually. Maybe like an MmmBop? But definitely not a dick."

"An MmmBop?" I repeat, eyes on the road and then back at Jessie and so forth. "Like the song, right?"

"Yeah. Like how it's a tiny fraction of time. The tinniest amount but it's still important. A lot can happen in a milly willy second," she snorts, twisting her feet so they gently drag across my crotch as she says the word. "Think about it. It took you like a second, if that to lean in and kiss me in Vegas, in that lift and it's changed everything."

That it has. I swallow hard and nod because soon it'll change again. She has no idea. "I've been waiting a whole lot longer than a milly willy second or an MmmBop to do that, just so you know."

Lifting her hand, she swoops it palm side down out the open window. Her sighs glide through the breeze too. 

"Ditto," she says.

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San Diego, Hillcrest, 7pm - August 20th

"You're killing me. I am dying over here," Jessie draws out each syllable and hops from one foot to the other, like she badly needs to pee. "I am so stupidly nervous right now I may throw up."

The screen loads so slowly it's as if we've gone back a decade to dial up. I tap the laptop as I wait for it to finally reveal my results. 

"If you got higher than me I'll be mega pissed but then, I'll be insanely proud and then excited because it means we're going to Uni baby!" She does a little dance in the middle of our rented San Diego apartment above a couples garage. "Well, not the exact same one, but it might as well be!"

I close my eyes. Maybe if I don't open them ever again nothing can change. I'll be stuck in the moment. Nothing can be ruined. 

"Two B's and a C?!"

My eyes open and adjust. Jessie is peering close over my shoulder. She might as well be a second head.

"Woah. Woah. We got the same. Freaky!"

"Uh huh."

She throws her arms round me and squeezes so tight I can hardly breathe, let alone talk. 

"Oh my god! Ellis! You did it! We did it!" Jessie happy dances again, deliriously and dangerously close to knocking over ornaments from a shelf near the breakfast counter. When she punches the air and starts to laugh, I quickly close the tab and laptop shut. 

"Yeah, whoop!" I say quietly, willing my voice to sound happier and for my expression to register excitement like hers but it's hard. "Go us."

"Ellis," she says fast, pulling me by the collar of my shirt, "we're going to University. Can you even believe it? Phew, and after all of that! Goodbye studying. Hello new life!"

I watch her climb up onto the pull out sofa bed and start to jump. She reaches for me to join her but I can't. I'm numb and scared. 

I'm in. I got in. 

One of the best Universities for Film Studies, with excellent work experience placements and internships and lectures from legends, directors, actors, true visionaries wants me, now that I've got the grades to prove I'm serious. 

Why then do I feel so utterly miserable? So god damn guilty?

"We're going to be so close Ellis, that we'll practically still be neighbours. How awesome is that?" Again Jessie reaches for the sky, springing up and down. Her hair wild and messy, her smile so wide it's as if she could swallow up everything. 

On the opposite side of the small apartment room, I watch her jump for joy and smile at the appropriate times and grin, so she can't see how I really feel. 

"I am so proud of you," I say, once she's vented all her initial excitement and shock at not failing her A levels like she'd always moaned she would. "I really am."

"Ah shucks," She strides towards me and nuzzles her face against my cheek. "I'm proud of you too, Mr. Secret Smarty pants."

"You're mum will be happy and your dad."

"And Daniel because he'll get my room, thanks for reminding me," Jessie says with light laughter. "I'll give mum a call tomorrow in the morning, hopefully my Uni acceptance letter will have come through by then."

I gently kiss her nose and follow the trail of freckles along her cheekbone. "Um, are you still wanting to go there?"

"To Northlea Uni?" She doesn't even give me time to nod. "Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

My palms start to sweat. "I just didn't know if you'd 100% made up your mind, I mean, isn't the course kind of basic? Didn't you say that the journalism course isn't as up to date as the one in Plymouth?"

She snorts and weaves her fingers through mine. "Meh. I dunno. Maybe but I'll be fine. Northlea is close without being in Newton-Berry but it's close enough so we can..." Jessie pauses to sigh, "be together."

I know being together means something very different than before. My heart wallows in the guilt of it all. "Okay. Well, maybe see how you feel once we get back."

"I have to accept the offer within the next few days or let them know if I'm turning it down."

"Sure."

Slapping her hand across my thigh, she sits up poker straight. "Anyways, enough chitchat about what's going to happen in two or three weeks time. I'm starving. Let's go eat."

"Now?"

"Yup. My treat. Slap up dinner or burrito, whatever you want." Jessie's brows dance up and down, until I nod and kiss her. 

Again and again and again.